Sign up to receive our free Tech e-newsletter and get the latest tech news, Hot Sites & more in your inbox.

E-mail:

Select one:
HTML
Text

Video games have a grip on Hollywood

By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY

Who needs comic books?

Milla Jovovich suits up, or swords up if you prefer, for "Resident Evil: Apocalypse."

Image courtesy Screen Gems

When it comes to fodder for the next big hit, Hollywood is increasingly turning to video games for inspiration.

Motivated by huge interest internationally for video game movies, studios are adapting for the big screen at least six popular video titles, starting Friday with Resident Evil: Apocalypse. It's the sequel to the 2002 video game adaptation Resident Evil, which stunned studio executives by raking in $39.6 million in the USA and $102.4 million worldwide.

Since then, studios have been scrambling to acquire the rights to video titles in hopes of turning gamers into moviegoers:

•Spy Hunter, based on the popular combat-racing game, is due next year with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in the role of fearless pilot Alec Sects.

•Bloodrayne, an adaptation of the video game about a dhampir (half-human, half-vampire), hits screens next year with Kristanna Loken from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in the title role.

• Paramount Pictures has acquired the film rights to the terrorist battle game Psi-Ops and to the mutant combat game Area-51. Screen Gems bought the rights to the car chase hit Getaway.

There's good reason studios are going gaming: The market holds as much promise as the lucrative comic book genre. According to video game industry surveys, roughly 160 million Americans — or about 60% of the U.S. population — will play some form of video game this year. (Flash gallery: Videogames go to the movies)

The gaming industry already has flexed its muscle with Hollywood. The 2001 hit Lara Croft: Tomb Raider took in $131.2 domestically and $143.5 million in foreign markets. Its spinoff, Cradle of Life, did a paltry $65.7 million in the USA but $90.8 million overseas. And this summer's Alien vs. Predator opened at No. 1 with $38.3 million before taking in $82.7 million worldwide.

Video games "have opened up a new way of looking at franchises," says Hutch Parker, president of production for 20th Century Fox, which released AVP. "Video game fans are as loyal as any I've seen. And there are a ton of them."

The Resident Evil game has sold more than 24 million units worldwide and is credited with sparking the "survivor-horror" genre of first-person shoot-'em-up games.

Apocalypse screenwriter Paul Anderson says games are ripe for adaptation because they have characters, story lines and even soundtracks tailor-made for film.

"In some ways it's easier to turn Resident Evil into a movie because the games themselves are so heavily influenced by movies," he says. "There is some striking imagery from the game that we re-created for the big screen."

Apocalypse star Milla Jovovich recognized many of those scenes; she's addicted to the video game.

"My brother and I play for hours," says Jovovich, who plays Alice, a gun-toting toughie trying to escape a town of mutants. "He works the controller, and I tell him what to do."

The genre may not give other fall films a run for Oscar, Jovovich concedes, but it does appeal to the inner nerd in many young filmgoers — including herself.

In one marathon video session, "we spent three hours trying to get out of (the) queen's chamber because I couldn't find a code," she says. "God, that makes me sound like a hard-core gamer, doesn't it?"